Easter, a little late
I am the oldest of a darling multitude of cousins. In the particular branch of the family that we celebrated Easter with, Katie and Eric are the youngest - but are really not so young anymore as both are graduating from high school this year. But who said spring sphere hunts were for kids only! My aunt, uncle and I hid the eggs and everyone ran outside for a delightful northwest egg hunt (translation: it was raining while they were hunting).
My aunt came up with another amazing party game: the dessert scavenger hunt. We were all divided into teams of 4, and had to race around collecting 8 different clues and dessert ingredients. Whichever team got the clue first got to keep the ingredient found at that spot. Once all the clues had been found and we had all re-assembled in the kitchen, each team had 45 minutes to concoct a dessert based upon their ingredients + anything else found in the kitchen.
And we were off!
Team 4: My mom, Alex, Marc and Thomas got the ingredients ‘oranges’ and ‘phyllo dough’ and concocted a pastry filled with caramelized bacon, something creamy and sweet, oranges and maybe a few other things. The details escape me. But it was tasty.
Team 3: Uncle David, Aunt Cheryl, Matthew and Laura got the ingredients coconut and chocolate. This was an unfair advantage on several counts. A) my aunt Brenda, the judge, loves coconut almost more than life itself. She is also known by some delightful young ones as “Aunt Chocolate” B) they knew that even though my uncle Chris, also the judge, does not typically like coconut, he likes it toasted on vanilla ice cream, of which there happened to be some of the home made variety in the freezer. Even with their vanilla ice cream topped with toasted coconut, and delightful toasted coconut macaroons, they did not come out on top because they failed to utilize chocolate in a full way considering it was one of their main ingredients.
Team 2: Myself, Joel, Eric and Don found peanut butter and pecans. We made peanut butter cups, naturally. It helps to have good quality chocolate, and delicious peanut butter in a recipe heavily relying on those two ingredients. Had we carmelized the pecans, I think that might have put us out on top, but none of us thought about it until it was too late in the game.
Team 1: Grammie, Papa, Katie and Peter really seemed to be out of luck with ritz crackers and peeps as their main ingredients. They were undaunted though. And were they ever creative. First, they smeared one ritz cracker with peanut butter. Then they laid down a softened peep, and made a little sandwich out of it with another ritz cracker. The whole sandwich was dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with caramelized bacon. Whoa. They managed to pull out a win despite their seemingly subpar beginnings. Way to go!
The prize was a set of spatulas highly coveted by anyone who has ever spent time in the Kinsman kitchen. As the runner up (shh don’t tell anyone) my aunt also slipped me a set too. WOOHOO! They are amazing.
The judges sampling our delicious wares
If you would like to recreate home made peanut butter cups to end all peanut butter cups, please proceed. They are so easy to make, if just a tad tedious, but the end result is totally worth it.
Peanut Butter Cups
adapted from several sources online, until the original recipes are unrecognizable.
yield 48 small cups
1.5 cups natural peanut butter, soft
1 cup butter, soft
1 cup smashed ritz crackers (or other buttery, sort of salty crackers)
1 cup powdered sugar
8 ozish Callebaut Guittard Etienne prestige chocolate
Line a mini muffin tin with wrappers.
Melt your chocolate in a microwave-safe dish (I always use a pyrex measuring cup). They key is melt it slowly and stir often. Heat for 20 seconds, stir, heat for 20 more seconds, stir. This way you won’t over heat your chocolate, and you won’t risk seizing it by introducing water accidentally (as you might if you double boiled the chocolate).
Drop a dollop of the chocolate in the bottom of each cup and smear around the edges. Place in the freezer for a few minutes til the chocolate is hardened.
Mix together the peanut butter, crackers, butter and powdered sugar. Adjust any of the ingredient amounts at this stage to suit your taste, as this is really how it will taste in the end.
Pull the cups out of the freezer and fill them with peanut butter mixture. Add more chocolate to the top (you may need to reheat your chocolate again, just a tad) and smear around until all the peanut butter is covered. If your peanut butter mixture is really soupy, as ours was initially from our melted butter, you might want to pop the cups in the freezer to let them set a bit before adding the chocolate. Subsequent times I made them, the peanut butter was already pretty solid so I skipped that step.
I put mine back in the freezer to let the tops set a bit et voila. Miraculous peanut butter cups are now yours to help win over new friends.
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